May ish
Starter: spruce tips (taste of fresh pine and sweet lemon, waxy texture)
Main: hop shoot green salad with tender yarrow, vetch, winter purslane, salad burnett, ground elder (and cow parsley only if you know about umbellifers because there are poisonous look alikes)
My favourite dish from the hedgerow at the back of my house- the flavours are fresh, like peas, spinach and cucumber. Snap the last 7 or so cm off the shoots of the hops, like you would with asparagus to locate the woody bit. Cook only the tips in whatever you like- butter or oil. Pile up on a plate when they are soft but still have a good bite, and sprinkle washed salad leaves all over.
Dress very gently in lemon and vinegar and a good olive or rapeseed oil. See how many favours you can pick out as you eat different mouthfuls. The hops have a clean malty taste, the vetch are sweet like peas, the ground elder almost a parsley taste, salad burnett is like cucumber. Infusing any of these in water will draw out these flavours too.
When I eat many wild things for the first time, I think, ‘interesting, nice to try’ but this, I just can’t wait to have again. If hop shoots were available on any menu I’d order it, every time.